Bonum Certa Men Certa

Techrights Under Attack Again, Shortly After Important EPO Articles

Benoit Battistelli



Summary: Techrights highlights a pattern that is months old; Site faces availability issues shortly after reports about the European Patent Office and its abuses

TODAY we published three very important articles regarding the EPO. It didn't take more than an hour for the site to become inaccessible. Cracking attempts against Techrights sharply rose to a pace of ~1 per second (it's usually quite bad, but not that bad) and Techrights was down due to exhausted resources, as is so often the case (for 6 months now) after writing major reports about EPO scandals. Investigation ensued (we still study the damage and the cause) and we are back online. Risk of brute-force SSH attacks on Techrights had already been mitigated by restriction to key-only authorisation, but that did not protect from DDOS attacks with large enough IP addresses pool. There is a reason and motivation, but we don't know whose. Correlations (in timing and more) have inspired mere guesses over the past 6 months. We have been taking comprehensive site backups specifically before publishing key (exclusive) articles about the EPO; we didn't do this in our entire history as a public site (which is almost a decade old). With mass protests, ugly coverups, violations of the law and resignations already happening there is a lot at stake here. DDOS attacks against us started around the same time the series about the EPO began, lasting months and sometimes persevering for weeks at a time (causing downtime or limited availability). I lost many nights of sleep over it. So has my wife.



"The EPO is already being sued by staff, which forced it (in The Hague) to stop censoring (essentially attacking) the voice of staff."We already have it confirmed that EPO is in such as sordid mess that there are censorship attacks (by the EPO's management) on EPO staff. This is the same management which is misusing taxpayers' money, paying for fake coverage to glorify EPO management in respected publications such as the New Scientist. The decision from the EPO to plant 'articles'/'testimonies' (for a fee!) will backfire badly on Benoît Battistelli. As one IPKat comment put it: "As we read the various comments from the anonymice, keep in mind, dear Reader, that a comment that gives every appearance of coming from an EPO Examiner might in fact be disinformation coming from a crony of the President. And vice versa, of course."

The EPO is already being sued by staff, which forced it (in The Hague) to stop censoring (essentially attacking) the voice of staff. This never prevented staff from accessing information from home (after work). "I think that's the begining [sic.] of the end of Battistelli reign," says a comment from the past hour, "it will create a scandal bigger that the Edith Cresson scandal" (context here).

Recent Techrights' Posts

LLM Slopfarm: A Site's Last Incarnation Before Throwing in the Towel, Going Offline Permanently
A lot of coverage that claims to be about Finland is chatbot-generated nonsense or poorly-plagiarised work
LLM Slop (Lots of It Spewed Out by Microsoft) Versus Linux
Microsoft is a very, very evil company. It doesn't mind destroying the Web if there's a chance it'll make a buck in the process or mess up people's brains (in Microsoft's favour).
 
[Video] Dr. Richard Stallman's Keynote Speech in Kerala Finally Uploaded
In non-free format and proprietary YouTube, but perhaps that's better than nothing
Islands Are Leaving Microsoft Behind, According to statCounter
Android has had a very strong year
EPO Management Fails to Deny That the Office is Discriminating Against Women
Europe's second-largest institution isn't just exceedingly corrupt but also immoral
In Some Countries the Market Share of Vista 11 is Going Down, Not Up
despite being released in 2021
Rumour: Mass Layoffs in IBM Canada Today
Maybe later today some people from Canada will say something firmer and maybe some media will even talk about that
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Gemini Links 27/03/2025: X-Files' "Kill Switch", Orlando, and ASN (Autonomous System Number) 'Hack'
Links for the day
Links 26/03/2025: Healthcare Cuts and Turkey's Own "2025 Project" (Culling Opposition)
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical Pays IDG to Spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
this seems a tad exploitative and reminds us of the time Novell kept telling companies that using anything other than SUSE was dangerous
Gemini Links 26/03/2025: GTD, Zenshuu, and Geminispace Community
Links for the day
Links 26/03/2025: Media's Failures, Arrests of Journalists, Limitations of End-to-End Encryption
Links for the day
Slopfarms (Sites That Only Ever Publish LLM Slop) Are Killing Google News
pair of slopfarms still propped up by Google News
Microsoft's Serial Strangler's Law Firm Has a Long History of Fronting for People Who Do Bad and/or Illegal Things
Whose terrible idea was this?
Novell and Microsoft Apologist/Booster Bruce Byfield Writing About the FSF is a Recipe for Problems
Totally not shoehorning some agenda
Looking Forward to the Fall of UPC and Revocation of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement, Which Was Always Illegal and Unconstitutional
We'll try to keep abreast of any progress in this case
Slopwatch: Google News, LinuxSecurity.com, and the General Demise of the Web
many supposed or so-called "news" pages are just spewed out by some chatbots (or tools which help plagiarise original articles without getting caught; detection gets harder)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 25, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Links 25/03/2025: Clownflare’s Slop and Bounties on Fake Patents
Links for the day
Links 25/03/2025: Terrace Workbench and Spellcheck in LibreOffice on FreeBSD
Links for the day
Let Them Eat 'Apps'
Go Appless
Linux Runs Almost Everything, But They Almost Never Tell You This (No Marketing Budget)
Only about 1% (or at most 2%) of the Linux Foundation's budget goes towards Linux; a lot is routed towards Bill Gates and Microsoft promotion
Free Software Community Folks Are Closer Together Than the Cliques and Opportunists Rallying Around "Open Source" (Openwashing, Marketing, Conniving)
Generally speaking, freedom-loving geeks learn to reject morbid elements and trolls, who end up expelled
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Might Get 'Forked' Soon
Someone who read our series has already taken a leading role
IBM Layoffs in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2025
Should Free software people trust such a secretive company?
Roku Will 'Lead' Attempts to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC), Which Represents EPO Corruption and Lobbyism Spreading Upwards Inside the EU
When bribery buys policies and courts, even illegal policies and courts
Growing Poverty Rates in the United States of America (or Elsewhere) Beneficial to GNU/Linux Adoption
Toxic politics around the world, including the US, may mean weaker economies
European Patent Office (EPO) Illegally Turning to Slop Behind Closed Doors, Staff Objects to This Hidden Catastrophe
Who stands to gain from all this and at whose expense?
Gemini Links 25/03/2025: Relaxation, Literary "Movements", and Gemini Mentions
Links for the day
After US Government Funding Cuts the Centralisation of the Web (Especially Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt) is at Risk
They try to pull the plug on open protocols with decent encryption available (unless it is outsourced to third parties)
Links 25/03/2025: Putin Sends Children to Battle, 23andMe Drowns as People's Highly Personal DNA Data Floats
Links for the day
When Microsoft Folks Who Literally Strangle Women Try to Strangle Microsoft Critics
Speaking to Court staff yesterday, they too are shocked about those SLAPPs
Martinique: Windows Down to All-Time Low
we cannot expect Windows to ever recover
Anticipated in 2018: Lilie James & Location tracking, Googlists complained
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 24, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 24, 2025